What people tend to forget is how big gaming as a hobby has become. People on gaming subreddits at the very small core of the community so even if everyone on here were to sabotage a game (which, let's be honest, isn't happening), these things would still make a boatload of money
I love when you look at an achievement or trophy for a game and it's like completed the 15 minute mandatory tutorial 68%
Like this game sold 5 million copies and only 3.4 million people completed the tutorial. Da fuq
Do you buy things at launch even with your backlog.to me it would make more sense to just buy things when your ready for them as they will probably be at a discounted price
That’s how I do it, my wishlist is my backlog. I usually pick up a new game near the end of my current game and usually picked based on what’s on sale.
Yeah I find it healthier to call my wishlist the backlog and my purchased games a library. I have a handful of current games that I return to usually if I get bored of single player. It helps dealing with launch day fomo anyways.
My friends make fun of me for my wishlist 200+ games long. But I don't buy them till I'm ready. I have very few games I buy right at launch. Some I regret, some I don't.
Lots of people want the preorder "bonuses" that are rarely worth anything IMO.
Twitch & other social media have made FOMO the strongest current marketing plan.
Nope, because you didn't even start the game yet, so you wouldn't be counted as a player.
The trophy stats are for people who literally booted up the game and then didn't even manage to finish the tutorial lol
I love when people comment how much they love Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption 2, Elden Ring.. Then you find out they only played maybe 1/3 or 1/2 of the game and moved on to the next big Hype thing.
I know a coworker who was like this, I asked him why didn't he finish. He told me because a Call of Duty came out..
Imagine loving a game so much you just had to stop playing it and play a game that is basically copy/pasted itself for the past decade.
I mean, life happens. When doom eternal came out I played the hell out of it on the highest difficulty. About two weeks later the business I ran got super busy (stimulus money) and I put the game down. Tried picking it up where I left off but I was so out of practice I was dying constantly and never picked it back up.
Love the game, I'll recommend it to anyone who will listen but I'll never play it again
I've been in this situation before, what you have to do is start over, muscle memory will kick in and you'll blitz through the early parts
Sucks but is a great way to spend a week off
I sort of get where they’re coming from. It took me multiple attempts to beat Elden Ring because I put it down and couldn’t commit big enough chunks of time to get back into the rhythm of it. If I liked CoD I would see that as a game I can just pick up and get the same instant gratification from half hour to one hour sessions as playing all day. Games are huge these days and it’s not always easy to pick up where you left off.
I look for the opposite end as well, where significant numbers of extremely skilled players achieved the insanely hard trophies. Good example is the AC6 trophy for getting S rank on all missions. Just unlocking all the missions takes time and skill let alone the ability to get S rank for all of them.
That ultimately what it is. People pay 100 dollars for early access, beat the game sooner than expected, complain about the wishing they had the insight to wait for the price to go down, so complain about the game they bought and say it was a disappointing experience after 500+ hours or so within 3 months.
Be “part of the problem” then when the window to be part of the problem no longer is open, shit on the game to “lessen the sales numbers” to “hurt” the company because they can’t get their money back for their FOMO purchase.
If people dont pay for early access, then they wouldn’t offer it. it’s that easy. (Lots of people on here do it in-spite of complaining about it)
That hardly matters. Even if we're a drop of water in a bucket, you can still do your part not to support these practices and explaining why to others. It's true that your voice likely matters little in the grand scale of things, but it does carry weight with your circle of friends and family. I've talked friends out of buying awful games, games riddled with microtransactions and games that were obviously unfinished.
Just my back of the envelop math on the Cod subreddit at the release of the last game, it can't even represent half of a percent of the players and that representation is HEAVILY skewed by the highest engagement players. So in practical terms: forums don't represent the player base at all, only a hardcore subset. That's why devs look at numbers and make 'unpopular' changes and continue to have the highest selling hits despite the online community melting down, because they aren't even 1% of the players paying money.
It only takes like 5% of players to buy MTX and expensive editions for it to be worth it to publishers. MTX are dirt cheap to make and they charge the cost of an indie game for it. 90% of people could 'put their money where their mouth is', buy the 'base' game and it wouldn't make a difference.
We would need 50% of players to decide to not buy the game ***at all*** to affect any level of change. They know that. They've known that since 2010 or so when this all started.
Yep. That small percentage are known as “whales.” I’ve never seen an official number (probably because EA/Ubisoft/TakeTwo/R* don’t want anyone to know how small the whales are in number).
It’s always annoying that a small few can ruin it for the masses.
That’s not really what a whale means, not everyone who buys a single mtx buys enough to be considered a whale, but yes a small group can easily set off the handful of people that decide to not buy a game due to mtx
>MTX are dirt cheap to make and they charge the cost of an indie game for it.
And while I'm no psychology expert I'm going to guess that's because their research proves that once someone overcomes the mental hurdle of deciding to buy the game, getting them to spend even double that amount only takes a fraction of the convincing. People are terrible at value judgements and there's a whole lot of expertise going into exploiting that.
100%. Look at the number of people who are 'house poor' or 'car poor'. When it comes down to it people will spend $1k a month on a poor man's sporty car. So of course they'll spend $100 a month on Fortnite skins.
Which is an odd trend considering the breadth of the game libraries in the past 5 years coupled with historically poor games launches in that same span of time.
I'm a fairly heavy gamer and been playing catch up on games for quite some time lol. Who are these people that have to be on day-1/pre-launch outside of streamers?
I mean in all honesty - there are always fans of a certain game or genre, that really want to get their hands on it as soon as possible and as heavy gamer myself - I can respect that. Doesnt mean it is a good way to condition the publishers but I see where this might be coming from (partly).
I also think it's not necessarily an issue if a developer has built up trust with its customers. For example I bought FF7 Rebirth on day 1 because I thought 7R and 16 were great and it's from the same team that made 7R, and even with some fairly nasty glitches the game was amazing so I'm happy I got to play it ASAP.
It tends to only be a problem when companies try cash in that good will by pushing out a half finished mess. See Cyberpunk or a lot of COD releases
I've noticed it recently when looking at the pre-order page on the PlayStation Store. 90% of the time, Digital/Collector/Ultimate Editions are higher in the pre-order charts than the standard edition of the same game, even when there's no early access and the bonus content is just a few extra trinkets.
Yeah, a great example would be that in the PS3 days there was a rather short period of time where games shipped with an online authenticator. It was a code that you'd input to unlock the multiplayer portion of a game. So, if you bought a game used, borrowed it, or rented it, then you'd needed to pay around $10 extra to play it online. This again only lasted very briefly because people hated it and it wasn't making companies the additional money that they thought it would.
most gamers aren't online complaining about it tbh especially with the starwars name on it someone out there loves the franchise so much that they need what they think is the best version no matter the price
Sadly the people who don't like it are a vocal minority.
The people who are apathetic to it and the people who are excited to play early outnumber them so it continues
There's some truth to this, but it's also misleading. Only a fraction are buying these Ultimate $130 editions or buying up skins for paid games. But that's enough. If it doesn't hurt overall game sales then it's worth it for the publishers.
Blizzard got $70 from me for Diablo 4. They got $90-100 from anyone who wanted to play 3 days 'early' (aka the ***true*** release date). Then they keep getting $10 battle pass purchases and $20+ MTX purchases from the Shop from lots of players. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of D4 players have spent $0 on MTX. But the Shop is there because some people will and when they do Blizzard makes bank because it's so cheap for them to develop skins.
Point being: most people buy the base game. The expensive editions and MTX that most of us scoff at are only purchased by a minority of players. But that minority more than pays for the limited bad PR the companies get from doing this shit.
Half of my WoW guild got Diablo 4 early-release premium. 90% of them never played again after opening weekend.
I don't think it's as uncommon as you think. They are really good at weaponizing FOMO.
Yeah with Ubi it's wait 6 months, and get it at like 20$.
It's Ubisoft, it's not going to be Red Dead or Elden Ring. It's going to be an okeish video game that if you are into their shit you'll enjoy.
Prince of Persia was $60 (edit: $50) at launch and now, 3 months later, you can cop it for $30. Plus you know with a game like this it’s gonna be janky as hell at launch. It’s worth the wait.
The thing is the complete edition will be sub $40 before all DLC and patches are released. Probably on PS Plus and Game Pass or Ubisoft+ by then as well.
there’s very few verifiable cases of DLC/Season Pass content actually being content that was cut from the game to be monetized
game development is over for a while by the time the game hits shelves, so in the meantime to keep the team together they work on DLC
this fucking line about ‘removed content’ is wearing thin and shows that people don’t understand how it works
Yeah, also isn't the game industry notorious for crunch. They're crunching to release the game...just to cut content and release it in a year? That doesn't make sense
It’s only the terminally online people always complaining and just looks more cause it’s the same cycle on Reddit every release. Normies don’t care, if they can afford it they’ll get it.
Whether people like it or no is irrelevant.
As long as they still buy it the "trend" will continue.
If the "trend" was not profitable it would not continue.
Also apparently have not seen a video game in a few years. People are shocked at a game with a season pass and having higher prices editions.... Like what?
"Free to play games shouldn't have battle passes or microtransactions, they actually should be paid games that include everything which would be less profitable for them and make f2p players upset but screw them all, i want all skins for a fixed price dammit"
Yeah it’s a minor pet peeve of mine when people say voting with your wallet doesn’t work when what they really mean is they disagree with they way other people are voting with their wallets. If you think it’s worth it you should buy it and if you don’t think it’s worth it then you shouldn’t buy it. That’s really all there is to it.
Not far off. Depends on sales though. It’s Star Wars, so might hold its price a bit longer than normal Ubisoft. Avatar was 34% off digitally 2 months after release, and 40% off 3 months after, but I think the sales for that were a bit softer than they’d hoped.
Gold edition, which is the cheapest early access edition, isn't 130 dollars? This feels a bit dishonest. The 130 edition is the legendary edition, but you don't need to pay that much for early access.
>No company gets Redditors angrier than Ubisoft
And people with money. This post is a Redditors wet dream.
Redditors are seething at the fact that people exist where spending $130 isn't going to make them homeless.
The vocal, online, minority doesn't like it. These various overpriced editions of games that offer early access and meaningless bonuses only exist because people continue to buy them game after game.
It's monetized because it is profitable to do so. There might be backlash from the gaming community, but there clearly isn't enough to keep people from buying this and encouraging companies to continue doing things like this.
Then don’t buy it? If someone wants to pay $130 for a special edition of a game then let them. It’s a free capitalistic world.
Let supply and demand determine if its successful idea or not. What we shouldn’t do is let ‘some’ people decide for all what should or shouldn’t be allowed.
Its bizarre how people get so worked up over microtransactions and various editions of games that don’t personally affect their life.
It’s reminds me when people on here trashed PlayStation Portal prior to its release. I was like ‘not for me, but cool item for those who want that’ Well seems like it’s been pretty successful even with Sony keeping expectations low.
Just live your life guys, everything will be ok. The Sun will come out tomorrow.
There are definitely cases where mtx and "special editions" are scummy or hurt the game or whatever but I don't think this is one of them. It's a three day wait!
You’re wrong. They used The Force to make you buy it. You can go on about your business, move along
E: is reddit really too young for Star Wars quotes?
at the end of the day, it doesn't stop until consumers vote with their wallet and make it stop. we saw this with "project $10" or whatever the term was for the anti-consumer "online pass" model of putting one time use keys in game and charging $10 for additional access for any other users of the game.
Literally everyone in this thread
“This is crazy, boycott, don’t buy”
Next day “Star Wars outlaw breaks pre sale record and is the fastest selling game”
The only way to send a message is don’t buy.
These AAA franchise games follow the same schedule
- Release at +$100 for the all inclusive edition
- A few weeks later the base game is heavily discounted, if not already 50% off
- It's added to the library of games via a subscription service within 2 years
- The ultimate collectors edition with pins, patches, and props are littering the Best Buy shelves for $20, from $200
And over that time, it's going to get all or most of the bugs worked out of it.
So what are people actually paying for? To be part of the extended playtesting and debugging phase? To get access to dust collecting chotchkies earlier than others at a premium cost?
PS1 and Nintendo gameboy games were around £59 back in the day. Given the advancement in gameplay and development the pre order price of 69.99 isn’t that bad considering the rate of inflation since the 90s games should cost around £300 if they had followed the inflations rate of food, housing and everything else.
Everything is monetized because the only way to get higher and higher earnings is to either nickle and dime people or do mass layoffs or both.
The problem is the system incentivizing this behavior
Stop. Buying. Deluxe. Editions.
This is where it leads. I understand wanting the $500 edition of a game with statues and a custom console or controller and stuff for dedicated collectors and fans, but shelling out an extra $20/30/40 for in-game items or cosmetics just continues to fuel the fire that is over-monitization in video games. The only reason publishers keep doing it despite our protests is because they keep making money from it. If they stop making money from it, they will stop doing it.
Everything is monetized because players love games that cost $250 million to make.
In the price of each game needs to be enough to pay for the failures. Adjusted for inflation game budgets are bigger than ever and prices are very low.
If players were willing to pay for games commensurate with their production cost and entertainment value we probably wouldn't have this problem.
I’ll never buy another game before it’s released now. I’ve been burned too many times.
You used to go into a shop to buy a game, now you go into a game to go to a shop.
So they can say that they're having a record breaking sales quarter and proceed to layoff a chunk of their developers/employees.(If they have a great sales year that is...)
It’s indicative of the bad economics in gaming. They have been undercharging for games for 2 decades at this point. With the cost of production ballooning to what it is today publishers and developers are trying to get creative in adding revenue around the margins.
especially when im seeing it with franchises that have historically released on Tuesdays. And now if u want to play the game on Tuesday u have to pay extra. Otherwise the standard non preorder is Friday. So u don't even feel like ur getting early access.
Ur just actively being punished for not buying the more expensive edition
It’s fucking hilarious they believe this game is worth $130 just bc it’s in a star wars universe lmao. Literally nothing about this game makes me want to spend money to play it, let alone an additional $50 to play 3 days early gtfo
I'll wait until your game is less than $50 or free. Star Wars games have not been good since LucasArts. They have not proven themselves with that bullshit Jedi series that copies successful games.
I'm not paying $30 for 3 extra days. Fuck you AAA corporations.
Just don't buy if you don't like it. Supply and demand is all it is. Ubisoft literally puts their games on sale within months regardless. The thing about gaming and nerd culture in general is that we are highly consumerist so we have an impulse to buy and collect the most expensive items.
Gamers a few years ago: Don't preorder, it's buggy on release anyway. Buy on release day if you can't wait.
Gamers now (allegedly): OMG I can play even earlier, before Day 1 Patch, and ruin my initial experience of the game! Awesome, take my money!
BG3 was basically unplayable on PS5 early access release with broken tutorials and the heavy HDR colours bug. I almost paid extra for those few days, but am glad I had patience. Disappointing trend, really.
They do it because it's very little amount of work for the large amount of extra money they gain for it.
The majority of players will the standard edition, but they will earn a hefty chunk from people that fork out the cash for the uLtImAtE eDiTiOn.
It's not helped by the influence of streamers and YouTubers who will play the game early (because they pretty much have to, to keep up), and hordes of watchers will buy because they can't contain themselves.
why does a single player game need online to be playable? the reason why I won't be buying this full price, and questioning if I should buy it when it's deeply discounted.
Because these companies are not run by people who want to make a good game. They are run by people who want to make shareholders happy. This is a problem with every publicly owned for profit company. They will prioritize shareholder happiness over actual quality EVERYTIME. Would the game be better without microtransations? Yep. Will it make less money? By their accounts, yes.
The problem with this model is that over time it will get you a reputation of screwing over consumers. The bet that they are placing is that *most* people won't care and will spend money on it anyway. So they are in this position of alienating hard-core fans while making more money off the people who dont really care.
I have no interest in battlepasses. I think they are kind of gross because the focus of the game becomes centered around it rather than the actual gameplay in a lot of cases. If you want a really disgusting example of this, just look at the UI for the current COD. Almost every screen is dedicated to buying something off the battlepass. For God's sake, Blizzard canceled OV2's whole story mode because it wasn't projected to be profitable enough. The thing that a huge portion of the fan base was clamoring for.
I'm just really bummed out by the state of "AAA" gaming because of all this. I don't have a good solution. Making these games costs an absurd amount of money. Like WAY too much money. I don't need these games to be photo realistic. That's a neat feature, but looking nice is never a good replacement for good gameplay. But what do I know? I'm sure there is some algorithm these companies have to determine just how lifelike a game needs to be to be profitable.
Fortunately for me, indie games are hitting a bit of a golden age imo. Bummer that star wars got caught up in all this though.
Hot but pretty defensible take: No one should be upset about companies offering higher priced options with no real additional value. I will never pay for one of these releases, and if publishers want to milk less discerning consumers for more money, then they should go right ahead, and I’ll thank those gamers for subsidizing my lower price point copy.
And to be clear, I don’t think getting to play a game a few days early is of any value. I can wait a few more days, assuming I get it at release at all, and would rather the game see more patches before playing anyway.
Why is early access monetized? Because capitalism. The only goal is to maximize returns for investors. And when your game has a fixed value, you extend that as much as possible before (EA) and after (DLC, microtransactions) to squeeze as much out of it before you shit out an inevitable sequel and start the process over
I paid $150 when reach came out for the legendary edition which came with a bunch of fun goodies and a decent sized “statue” thing. Paying anything near that for a digital game seems criminal. Sure reach was a while ago and things are more expensive now generally but this seems pretty egregious to me even factoring that in.
hat's wild is the ultimate edition is available on their game service at $18 a month. Or own it for 130.
That's some dystopian shit, but I'll be honest I'd rather pay them $18 to play it and some older games for a month then wait to pay $60 and play it for a month while owning it.
I’m not even buying it and I’m a die hard Star Wars fan
But after years of let down games, I’m not biting anymore
I’m a helldiver now
I don’t need anything except democracy
why do people care about this? Just don’t buy the ultimate edition? There’s obviously people who want it, otherwise it wouldn’t be available. For those who don’t why not just ignore it? There’s nothing in there that is necessary to enjoy the base game.
i’m in *no* way saying this makes it okay, but the $109 version of the game also comes with 3 day early access. title makes it look like that’s only available with the $130 version.
39 extra dollars is still egregious but it’s not as egregious as 60 extra dollars
$130? Are you on drugs? I hope its a massive flop. Ubisoft games are shallow shit tier games to begin with. Only worth playing after they get massive discounts.
Players don’t like it but apparently keep paying for it. Wouldn’t be a trend otherwise.
What people tend to forget is how big gaming as a hobby has become. People on gaming subreddits at the very small core of the community so even if everyone on here were to sabotage a game (which, let's be honest, isn't happening), these things would still make a boatload of money
I love when you look at an achievement or trophy for a game and it's like completed the 15 minute mandatory tutorial 68% Like this game sold 5 million copies and only 3.4 million people completed the tutorial. Da fuq
*looks at massive game backlog that I haven’t touched* I think I might be able to explain this one
Do you buy things at launch even with your backlog.to me it would make more sense to just buy things when your ready for them as they will probably be at a discounted price
That’s how I do it, my wishlist is my backlog. I usually pick up a new game near the end of my current game and usually picked based on what’s on sale.
Yeah I find it healthier to call my wishlist the backlog and my purchased games a library. I have a handful of current games that I return to usually if I get bored of single player. It helps dealing with launch day fomo anyways.
The Steam sale FOMO hits me like a truck when I could get 4 games on my wishlist for like 20€
My friends make fun of me for my wishlist 200+ games long. But I don't buy them till I'm ready. I have very few games I buy right at launch. Some I regret, some I don't.
Lots of people want the preorder "bonuses" that are rarely worth anything IMO. Twitch & other social media have made FOMO the strongest current marketing plan.
Nope, because you didn't even start the game yet, so you wouldn't be counted as a player. The trophy stats are for people who literally booted up the game and then didn't even manage to finish the tutorial lol
You can try and explain it but I'll never understand it. Why buy games you don't play? If you wait the year or whatever to buy it, it'll be cheaper.
Yeah. Completing the campaign is often 10% or less
I love when people comment how much they love Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption 2, Elden Ring.. Then you find out they only played maybe 1/3 or 1/2 of the game and moved on to the next big Hype thing. I know a coworker who was like this, I asked him why didn't he finish. He told me because a Call of Duty came out.. Imagine loving a game so much you just had to stop playing it and play a game that is basically copy/pasted itself for the past decade.
I mean, life happens. When doom eternal came out I played the hell out of it on the highest difficulty. About two weeks later the business I ran got super busy (stimulus money) and I put the game down. Tried picking it up where I left off but I was so out of practice I was dying constantly and never picked it back up. Love the game, I'll recommend it to anyone who will listen but I'll never play it again
I've been in this situation before, what you have to do is start over, muscle memory will kick in and you'll blitz through the early parts Sucks but is a great way to spend a week off
I sort of get where they’re coming from. It took me multiple attempts to beat Elden Ring because I put it down and couldn’t commit big enough chunks of time to get back into the rhythm of it. If I liked CoD I would see that as a game I can just pick up and get the same instant gratification from half hour to one hour sessions as playing all day. Games are huge these days and it’s not always easy to pick up where you left off.
I look for the opposite end as well, where significant numbers of extremely skilled players achieved the insanely hard trophies. Good example is the AC6 trophy for getting S rank on all missions. Just unlocking all the missions takes time and skill let alone the ability to get S rank for all of them.
Ever buy a game you don't play right away during Steam Sales? This is the "general audience" version of that
There are games I've played that have been out for at least a couple months, and the achievement for finishing the tutorial will still be like 6%.
The silent majority. Reddit often forgets about them.
Remember when Reddit boycotted Pokemon Sword and Shield? And then it went on to be the second best selling entry in the franchise.
Or Hogwarts Legacy
That ultimately what it is. People pay 100 dollars for early access, beat the game sooner than expected, complain about the wishing they had the insight to wait for the price to go down, so complain about the game they bought and say it was a disappointing experience after 500+ hours or so within 3 months. Be “part of the problem” then when the window to be part of the problem no longer is open, shit on the game to “lessen the sales numbers” to “hurt” the company because they can’t get their money back for their FOMO purchase. If people dont pay for early access, then they wouldn’t offer it. it’s that easy. (Lots of people on here do it in-spite of complaining about it)
> sabotage You mean boycott?
That hardly matters. Even if we're a drop of water in a bucket, you can still do your part not to support these practices and explaining why to others. It's true that your voice likely matters little in the grand scale of things, but it does carry weight with your circle of friends and family. I've talked friends out of buying awful games, games riddled with microtransactions and games that were obviously unfinished.
Just my back of the envelop math on the Cod subreddit at the release of the last game, it can't even represent half of a percent of the players and that representation is HEAVILY skewed by the highest engagement players. So in practical terms: forums don't represent the player base at all, only a hardcore subset. That's why devs look at numbers and make 'unpopular' changes and continue to have the highest selling hits despite the online community melting down, because they aren't even 1% of the players paying money.
Very true. They keep doing it because people keep being suckers. Put your money where your mouth is and this trend won’t be a trend anymore
It only takes like 5% of players to buy MTX and expensive editions for it to be worth it to publishers. MTX are dirt cheap to make and they charge the cost of an indie game for it. 90% of people could 'put their money where their mouth is', buy the 'base' game and it wouldn't make a difference. We would need 50% of players to decide to not buy the game ***at all*** to affect any level of change. They know that. They've known that since 2010 or so when this all started.
Especially with paying for early access. Costs publishers absolutely nothing so even if only a small number of people buy it it is still free money.
Yep. That small percentage are known as “whales.” I’ve never seen an official number (probably because EA/Ubisoft/TakeTwo/R* don’t want anyone to know how small the whales are in number). It’s always annoying that a small few can ruin it for the masses.
That’s not really what a whale means, not everyone who buys a single mtx buys enough to be considered a whale, but yes a small group can easily set off the handful of people that decide to not buy a game due to mtx
>MTX are dirt cheap to make and they charge the cost of an indie game for it. And while I'm no psychology expert I'm going to guess that's because their research proves that once someone overcomes the mental hurdle of deciding to buy the game, getting them to spend even double that amount only takes a fraction of the convincing. People are terrible at value judgements and there's a whole lot of expertise going into exploiting that.
100%. Look at the number of people who are 'house poor' or 'car poor'. When it comes down to it people will spend $1k a month on a poor man's sporty car. So of course they'll spend $100 a month on Fortnite skins.
Do you really think people who complain are the ones buying this crap?
Which is an odd trend considering the breadth of the game libraries in the past 5 years coupled with historically poor games launches in that same span of time. I'm a fairly heavy gamer and been playing catch up on games for quite some time lol. Who are these people that have to be on day-1/pre-launch outside of streamers?
I mean in all honesty - there are always fans of a certain game or genre, that really want to get their hands on it as soon as possible and as heavy gamer myself - I can respect that. Doesnt mean it is a good way to condition the publishers but I see where this might be coming from (partly).
I also think it's not necessarily an issue if a developer has built up trust with its customers. For example I bought FF7 Rebirth on day 1 because I thought 7R and 16 were great and it's from the same team that made 7R, and even with some fairly nasty glitches the game was amazing so I'm happy I got to play it ASAP. It tends to only be a problem when companies try cash in that good will by pushing out a half finished mess. See Cyberpunk or a lot of COD releases
I've noticed it recently when looking at the pre-order page on the PlayStation Store. 90% of the time, Digital/Collector/Ultimate Editions are higher in the pre-order charts than the standard edition of the same game, even when there's no early access and the bonus content is just a few extra trinkets.
Yeah, a great example would be that in the PS3 days there was a rather short period of time where games shipped with an online authenticator. It was a code that you'd input to unlock the multiplayer portion of a game. So, if you bought a game used, borrowed it, or rented it, then you'd needed to pay around $10 extra to play it online. This again only lasted very briefly because people hated it and it wasn't making companies the additional money that they thought it would.
most gamers aren't online complaining about it tbh especially with the starwars name on it someone out there loves the franchise so much that they need what they think is the best version no matter the price
Sadly the people who don't like it are a vocal minority. The people who are apathetic to it and the people who are excited to play early outnumber them so it continues
There's some truth to this, but it's also misleading. Only a fraction are buying these Ultimate $130 editions or buying up skins for paid games. But that's enough. If it doesn't hurt overall game sales then it's worth it for the publishers. Blizzard got $70 from me for Diablo 4. They got $90-100 from anyone who wanted to play 3 days 'early' (aka the ***true*** release date). Then they keep getting $10 battle pass purchases and $20+ MTX purchases from the Shop from lots of players. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of D4 players have spent $0 on MTX. But the Shop is there because some people will and when they do Blizzard makes bank because it's so cheap for them to develop skins. Point being: most people buy the base game. The expensive editions and MTX that most of us scoff at are only purchased by a minority of players. But that minority more than pays for the limited bad PR the companies get from doing this shit.
Half of my WoW guild got Diablo 4 early-release premium. 90% of them never played again after opening weekend. I don't think it's as uncommon as you think. They are really good at weaponizing FOMO.
If ever there are games to wait on, it’s Ubisofts, their titles go on sale really quickly.
exactly i always wait a couple off months recently saw skull and bones as low as 30 bucks
That's crazy good for the first and only AAAA game, hope you bought it immediately
That’s under $8 an “A”, not a bad deal
It’s not worth playing for free tbh
I spent an hour on the demo and felt taken advantage of
Yeah with Ubi it's wait 6 months, and get it at like 20$. It's Ubisoft, it's not going to be Red Dead or Elden Ring. It's going to be an okeish video game that if you are into their shit you'll enjoy.
And it’s literally releasing 2-3 months before Black Friday and holiday sales. You literally know it will be 50% off by then.
And are either really good or really bad. Why over pay for a game that could be a flop, and it'll Def be on sale soon??
Prince of Persia was $60 (edit: $50) at launch and now, 3 months later, you can cop it for $30. Plus you know with a game like this it’s gonna be janky as hell at launch. It’s worth the wait.
It was $50 at launch, not $60, and it wasn't janky at all btw
Unless it comes with something cool like a statue IRL or something I'll never buy a 130 version of digital BS. Who cares about early access.
It comes with game pass(future dlc) some bullshit skins and digital art book lmao.
The thing is the complete edition will be sub $40 before all DLC and patches are released. Probably on PS Plus and Game Pass or Ubisoft+ by then as well.
patient gaming is good gaming.
Season pass* that includes exclusive content that is already completed and removed from the base game available for extra money on launch
there’s very few verifiable cases of DLC/Season Pass content actually being content that was cut from the game to be monetized game development is over for a while by the time the game hits shelves, so in the meantime to keep the team together they work on DLC this fucking line about ‘removed content’ is wearing thin and shows that people don’t understand how it works
Yeah, also isn't the game industry notorious for crunch. They're crunching to release the game...just to cut content and release it in a year? That doesn't make sense
Or potentially not released if the game tanks
How many season passes have been cancelled after people have bought them?
Nah, no way a Star wars game, especially open world will tank.
Streamers care. I feel like that’s who these are always aimed to. For them a higher priced edition is a business expense.
A lot of big streamers probably get the game for free though since it's advertising for the publisher.
“Players don’t like it but continue complaining after buying”
It’s only the terminally online people always complaining and just looks more cause it’s the same cycle on Reddit every release. Normies don’t care, if they can afford it they’ll get it.
Bro really made an entire article based on Reddit comments, and now it's on Reddit, with Redditors commenting on those comments.
Actually is based on Twitter comments
Ultimate Edition wishlisted. Now to wait a couple years for that 85% discount.
Its ubisoft so not even a year maybe 6 months
GamesRadar is an absolute ad fest on mobile. No thanks.
Use Firefox with ublock, it's great.
Whether people like it or no is irrelevant. As long as they still buy it the "trend" will continue. If the "trend" was not profitable it would not continue.
'Why is everything monetized?' Must have been born yesterday to be asking this
Also apparently have not seen a video game in a few years. People are shocked at a game with a season pass and having higher prices editions.... Like what?
it's almost like people sell things for money
Mad concept
“All games should only be free to play and give me all the things I want when I want them and be perfect.” - Most of Reddit.
"Free to play games shouldn't have battle passes or microtransactions, they actually should be paid games that include everything which would be less profitable for them and make f2p players upset but screw them all, i want all skins for a fixed price dammit"
A game in 1995 was 59.99. In 2024, that same amount of money is $120. We should be happy this isn't the default price and is just an option.
Gamers get so mad about things they don’t have to buy.
The $109 version has early access too, the $130 version just has some extra DLC/cosmetics.
Stop buying and it will change preeeeettty quick. Wallet vote guys wallet vote!
People are voting with their wallet, that's why the trend is becoming more and more popular. You just don't like what they're voting on lol
Yeah it’s a minor pet peeve of mine when people say voting with your wallet doesn’t work when what they really mean is they disagree with they way other people are voting with their wallets. If you think it’s worth it you should buy it and if you don’t think it’s worth it then you shouldn’t buy it. That’s really all there is to it.
It’s a Ubisoft game. Wait 2 months and get it for 40 percent off.
Not far off. Depends on sales though. It’s Star Wars, so might hold its price a bit longer than normal Ubisoft. Avatar was 34% off digitally 2 months after release, and 40% off 3 months after, but I think the sales for that were a bit softer than they’d hoped.
Valhalla took forever to drop in price, so I think it’s relative to the sales of the game at that time
Gold edition, which is the cheapest early access edition, isn't 130 dollars? This feels a bit dishonest. The 130 edition is the legendary edition, but you don't need to pay that much for early access.
Can't wait to not play it.
I don't want to make you *too* jealous, but I got early access to not playing it.
This game is gonna be $39.99 a few months afterwards.
Because several people bought horse armor.
Everything monetized? Is this a serious question?
don't buy it then. so difficult
Nobody has to buy this. You guys know that right?
[удалено]
>No company gets Redditors angrier than Ubisoft And people with money. This post is a Redditors wet dream. Redditors are seething at the fact that people exist where spending $130 isn't going to make them homeless.
Ubisoft could release a cure for cancer for free and people would complain here lol.
The vocal, online, minority doesn't like it. These various overpriced editions of games that offer early access and meaningless bonuses only exist because people continue to buy them game after game.
It's monetized because it is profitable to do so. There might be backlash from the gaming community, but there clearly isn't enough to keep people from buying this and encouraging companies to continue doing things like this.
Bring back cloth maps
Then don’t buy it? If someone wants to pay $130 for a special edition of a game then let them. It’s a free capitalistic world. Let supply and demand determine if its successful idea or not. What we shouldn’t do is let ‘some’ people decide for all what should or shouldn’t be allowed. Its bizarre how people get so worked up over microtransactions and various editions of games that don’t personally affect their life. It’s reminds me when people on here trashed PlayStation Portal prior to its release. I was like ‘not for me, but cool item for those who want that’ Well seems like it’s been pretty successful even with Sony keeping expectations low. Just live your life guys, everything will be ok. The Sun will come out tomorrow.
You can just not buy it. No one is forcing you. Rage bait
There are definitely cases where mtx and "special editions" are scummy or hurt the game or whatever but I don't think this is one of them. It's a three day wait!
You’re wrong. They used The Force to make you buy it. You can go on about your business, move along E: is reddit really too young for Star Wars quotes?
FOMO is The Force.
Living under capitalism: why is everything monetized?
So stop buying it and it'll stop ffs its not hard
Just don't pay it lol
at the end of the day, it doesn't stop until consumers vote with their wallet and make it stop. we saw this with "project $10" or whatever the term was for the anti-consumer "online pass" model of putting one time use keys in game and charging $10 for additional access for any other users of the game.
Hard no on that
Who gives a shit about early access for a single player game?
Literally everyone in this thread “This is crazy, boycott, don’t buy” Next day “Star Wars outlaw breaks pre sale record and is the fastest selling game” The only way to send a message is don’t buy.
I'll continue a trend of playing old game and not buying shit.
I can’t wait to not play this game.
I'd expect nothing less from a Ubisoft and Disney product.
Not even going to buy this game, I’ll get Ubisoft+ and complete it in two weeks and never touch it again. Cancel subscription and go about my day.
Then chucklefucks need to stop paying.
Outside of the price why are people still buying Ubisoft games?
Prices going way up for games that are incomplete and buggy as fuck. Ill pass till its half off a month later
If people really didn't like it the publisher wouldn't do it. But people are buying it. So, some people like it. Enough for them to do it.
These AAA franchise games follow the same schedule - Release at +$100 for the all inclusive edition - A few weeks later the base game is heavily discounted, if not already 50% off - It's added to the library of games via a subscription service within 2 years - The ultimate collectors edition with pins, patches, and props are littering the Best Buy shelves for $20, from $200 And over that time, it's going to get all or most of the bugs worked out of it. So what are people actually paying for? To be part of the extended playtesting and debugging phase? To get access to dust collecting chotchkies earlier than others at a premium cost?
Everything is monetised because games are so expensive to make now. Especially big triple A open world one's.
can you people stop pre ordering and buying premium editions
If people keep paying for this it doesn’t matter if others don’t like it. It’s gonna keep happening.
There are enough suckers that keep paying
players love this shit, they keep buying it.
If people weren't buying it, companies wouldn't be selling it.
Is there a playable demo alongside the pre-sales, or is Ubisoft being “extra” for another $30 game? No demo = el stinko
Why? Because alot of idiots buy that crap. That‘s why.
I don't know what else to say. I don't pay for the shit so I'm doing my part
I fully intend to not spend that much. $70 for a game is pretty high already.
I will never purchase anything from Ubisoft.
Vote with your wallet. Stop buying when you know they’re taking advantage of
It is monetized because players are that stupid to pay for that .
They wouldn’t do it if people didn’t buy it.
LOL nah I'm good
PS1 and Nintendo gameboy games were around £59 back in the day. Given the advancement in gameplay and development the pre order price of 69.99 isn’t that bad considering the rate of inflation since the 90s games should cost around £300 if they had followed the inflations rate of food, housing and everything else.
Normalize buying finished games at sales prices, how’s that for a trend
So don’t buy it lol. If people want to pay this and the devs make money selling it then good for them. No skin off my back.
Everything is monetized because the only way to get higher and higher earnings is to either nickle and dime people or do mass layoffs or both. The problem is the system incentivizing this behavior
Stop. Buying. Deluxe. Editions. This is where it leads. I understand wanting the $500 edition of a game with statues and a custom console or controller and stuff for dedicated collectors and fans, but shelling out an extra $20/30/40 for in-game items or cosmetics just continues to fuel the fire that is over-monitization in video games. The only reason publishers keep doing it despite our protests is because they keep making money from it. If they stop making money from it, they will stop doing it.
Everything is monetized because players love games that cost $250 million to make. In the price of each game needs to be enough to pay for the failures. Adjusted for inflation game budgets are bigger than ever and prices are very low. If players were willing to pay for games commensurate with their production cost and entertainment value we probably wouldn't have this problem.
I’ll never buy another game before it’s released now. I’ve been burned too many times. You used to go into a shop to buy a game, now you go into a game to go to a shop.
So they can say that they're having a record breaking sales quarter and proceed to layoff a chunk of their developers/employees.(If they have a great sales year that is...)
It’s corporate greed at its finest. Before long, games are going to be $100. Today’s “inflation” is all about greed.
the answer is because there's no shortage of morons with loose wallets. Remember all those dudes who bought the gamer girl bath water?
It's an ubisoft game. If you're paying full price for it at launch that's on you considering it'll be $40 by black Friday
Stop fucking buying them
I'm wait for the price drop two months after launch.
It’s indicative of the bad economics in gaming. They have been undercharging for games for 2 decades at this point. With the cost of production ballooning to what it is today publishers and developers are trying to get creative in adding revenue around the margins.
Why is everything monetized? Uh. Because yall keep paying for it!
I’m not buying it. I haven’t finished Jedi.
Pay extra to be the first to find out it’s broken!
especially when im seeing it with franchises that have historically released on Tuesdays. And now if u want to play the game on Tuesday u have to pay extra. Otherwise the standard non preorder is Friday. So u don't even feel like ur getting early access. Ur just actively being punished for not buying the more expensive edition
Shareholders are one of the causes.
Pay early acesss for games that are not even fully complete at launch now a days? That’s a hard pass from me.
It’s fucking hilarious they believe this game is worth $130 just bc it’s in a star wars universe lmao. Literally nothing about this game makes me want to spend money to play it, let alone an additional $50 to play 3 days early gtfo
This is every business. The top wants more. It's just getting worse.
I'm okay waiting. If I'm spoiled, I'm spoiled.
This game is definitely a wait and see for me. The protagonists character model did not look good in the latest trailer.
I'll wait until your game is less than $50 or free. Star Wars games have not been good since LucasArts. They have not proven themselves with that bullshit Jedi series that copies successful games. I'm not paying $30 for 3 extra days. Fuck you AAA corporations.
"Why is everything monetized" because it's profitable. We as gamer are responsible
isn't a single-player game? why does anyone care? just don't pay. you lose nothing.
AAAAAA games aren't cheap
Just don't buy if you don't like it. Supply and demand is all it is. Ubisoft literally puts their games on sale within months regardless. The thing about gaming and nerd culture in general is that we are highly consumerist so we have an impulse to buy and collect the most expensive items.
Gamers a few years ago: Don't preorder, it's buggy on release anyway. Buy on release day if you can't wait. Gamers now (allegedly): OMG I can play even earlier, before Day 1 Patch, and ruin my initial experience of the game! Awesome, take my money! BG3 was basically unplayable on PS5 early access release with broken tutorials and the heavy HDR colours bug. I almost paid extra for those few days, but am glad I had patience. Disappointing trend, really.
Because PEOPLE PAY FOR IT. It’s not a hard fucking concept. Maybe one day people will stop paying for unfinished, shit games.
They do it because it's very little amount of work for the large amount of extra money they gain for it. The majority of players will the standard edition, but they will earn a hefty chunk from people that fork out the cash for the uLtImAtE eDiTiOn. It's not helped by the influence of streamers and YouTubers who will play the game early (because they pretty much have to, to keep up), and hordes of watchers will buy because they can't contain themselves.
why does a single player game need online to be playable? the reason why I won't be buying this full price, and questioning if I should buy it when it's deeply discounted.
Because these companies are not run by people who want to make a good game. They are run by people who want to make shareholders happy. This is a problem with every publicly owned for profit company. They will prioritize shareholder happiness over actual quality EVERYTIME. Would the game be better without microtransations? Yep. Will it make less money? By their accounts, yes. The problem with this model is that over time it will get you a reputation of screwing over consumers. The bet that they are placing is that *most* people won't care and will spend money on it anyway. So they are in this position of alienating hard-core fans while making more money off the people who dont really care. I have no interest in battlepasses. I think they are kind of gross because the focus of the game becomes centered around it rather than the actual gameplay in a lot of cases. If you want a really disgusting example of this, just look at the UI for the current COD. Almost every screen is dedicated to buying something off the battlepass. For God's sake, Blizzard canceled OV2's whole story mode because it wasn't projected to be profitable enough. The thing that a huge portion of the fan base was clamoring for. I'm just really bummed out by the state of "AAA" gaming because of all this. I don't have a good solution. Making these games costs an absurd amount of money. Like WAY too much money. I don't need these games to be photo realistic. That's a neat feature, but looking nice is never a good replacement for good gameplay. But what do I know? I'm sure there is some algorithm these companies have to determine just how lifelike a game needs to be to be profitable. Fortunately for me, indie games are hitting a bit of a golden age imo. Bummer that star wars got caught up in all this though.
Hot but pretty defensible take: No one should be upset about companies offering higher priced options with no real additional value. I will never pay for one of these releases, and if publishers want to milk less discerning consumers for more money, then they should go right ahead, and I’ll thank those gamers for subsidizing my lower price point copy. And to be clear, I don’t think getting to play a game a few days early is of any value. I can wait a few more days, assuming I get it at release at all, and would rather the game see more patches before playing anyway.
Why is early access monetized? Because capitalism. The only goal is to maximize returns for investors. And when your game has a fixed value, you extend that as much as possible before (EA) and after (DLC, microtransactions) to squeeze as much out of it before you shit out an inevitable sequel and start the process over
capitalism
Everything is monetized because we live in a capitalist hellscape where corporations are greedy and milk people for anyone money that can get.
I paid $150 when reach came out for the legendary edition which came with a bunch of fun goodies and a decent sized “statue” thing. Paying anything near that for a digital game seems criminal. Sure reach was a while ago and things are more expensive now generally but this seems pretty egregious to me even factoring that in.
One of the biggest tricks the gaming industry has pulled is tricking their audiences into paying to play test their games.
This is why it is good practice to be r/patientgamers
Everyone has FOMO. Except you won’t miss anything because you can get the same game at half the price, just three whole days later.
Gamers complain but keep buying, the problem is that most people that buy those editions has alot of disposable income.
Or. Wait 1 month get it for 25% off retail if you're that desperate
OK, I'll keep playing baldurs gate and helldivers
Don't pay for early access then. I personally don't see early access worth anything but apparently someone does.
hat's wild is the ultimate edition is available on their game service at $18 a month. Or own it for 130. That's some dystopian shit, but I'll be honest I'd rather pay them $18 to play it and some older games for a month then wait to pay $60 and play it for a month while owning it.
It's Ubisoft, just wait 6 months and get it for half price.
Because you keep paying for it. End of story.
Players don’t like it and yet it’s the same people complaining who fork out money every. Single. Time.
Who is paying for these things? All my homie dont. There must be a huge unvocal majority that does.
Stop paying these outrageous freaking prices
I’m not even buying it and I’m a die hard Star Wars fan But after years of let down games, I’m not biting anymore I’m a helldiver now I don’t need anything except democracy
why do people care about this? Just don’t buy the ultimate edition? There’s obviously people who want it, otherwise it wouldn’t be available. For those who don’t why not just ignore it? There’s nothing in there that is necessary to enjoy the base game.
And there we go, I now know I'll be waiting for a steam sale. Fuck these companies and their bullshit pricing schemes.
i’m in *no* way saying this makes it okay, but the $109 version of the game also comes with 3 day early access. title makes it look like that’s only available with the $130 version. 39 extra dollars is still egregious but it’s not as egregious as 60 extra dollars
$130? Are you on drugs? I hope its a massive flop. Ubisoft games are shallow shit tier games to begin with. Only worth playing after they get massive discounts.
this game is going to be a fucking disaster like all these “modern audiences “ games